


for the tie that binds

by blue--phantom (twilightscribe)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, M/M, Prompt Fic, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-23 08:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightscribe/pseuds/blue--phantom
Summary: Cullen was born with a dragon over his heart. The boy-who-would-be-Bull is born with a lion on his shoulder. They are soulmarked.





	1. beginning

Cullen is born with a dragon over his heart.

It curls around his ribcage, its head over his heart and its tail wrapped around the base of his spine. Against his fair skin, it stands out with its solid black lines. The dragon grows in size with him, always with its head over his heart.

Mia is the one who asks their mother what the mark means.

“He has a soulmark,” she says, her fingers tracing around the edges of the dragon. She’s careful never to touch it. “The Maker has granted him a blessing.”

“How is it a blessing?”

Their mother smiles, soft and sad, “It means that our son’s soul has been… split. Somewhere out there, is someone who possesses the other half of his soul. The Maker will bring them together, which is how they will be whole again.”

Cullen doesn’t really understand what the mark means until, one day, his brother touches it.

He doesn’t remember throwing the punch, bloodying his brother’s nose.

What Cullen remembers is that it felt as though someone had reached _inside_ of him and touched something deep inside of him that’s meant for no one else. It had felt like a violation of his very being and _needed_ it to stop.

His mother treats Branson’s nose, then sends him on his way with a warning that absolutely _no one_ but Cullen is to touch the dragon that he bears.

She runs her fingers through Cullen’s hair, humming softly.

“You’re not mad?”

“No.”

“But… I punched Branson.”

“Because he touched your soulmark. Your soul was simply too big for one body, so it’s been split; that’s what the mark means. Out there, somewhere in the world, is the one person who holds the other half of your soul.”

Cullen doesn’t know if he believes her, but the feeling of violation lingers. He rubs his hand over the dragon, his skin tingling as he does. Sometimes he feels an answering touch, occasionally and very rarely, but he convinces himself that it’s just his imagination.

“But no one else has a mark,” Cullen says.

“Not everyone is blessed with one. But there’s someone out there, waiting for you.”

He buries his face in his mother’s chest, listening to the sound of her heart as it beats. Trying to lose himself in the sounds of her heart and breathing, he finds that it’s not enough to block out that feeling that someone has touched something… intimate, inside of him.

His mother continues to stroke his hair, murmuring softly, “You’ll find them someday. And then… you’ll be whole.”

 

 

 

The boy-who-would-be-Bull is born with a lion on his shoulder.

He is Ashkaari then, and the lion on his shoulder is poised to lunge with its teeth bared. Ashkaari is the only one in his year born with a mark at all – all other babes are born with clear, clean skin. Though he asks the tamassrans what it means when he is old enough, they simply say that it’s a fluke – nothing more than a curious stroke of his birth.

Quickly, he learns to lie about the mark. When Ashkaari becomes Hissrad, he takes to covering it with the harness for his weapon. Lying comes easily, soon it’s forgotten and no one asks why he has a lion on his shoulder.

Seheron is a fucking shit hole.

It’s where he learns what the mark on his shoulder means.

He saves a young woman from some ‘Vints. She has a long, twining black mark of roses that goes down the length of her neck. Her mark has a name running alongside the roses.

The name isn’t important.

It’s the mark that is.

The information is easy enough to get out of her. She tilts her head to the side, before she leaves on a smuggler’s ship for Rivain, “It’s a soulmark. You qunari don’t have them?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“They’re very rare; it means that your soul has a match. Two halves of a whole, I guess. You can… feel them, through the mark. Sometimes you share dreams. At least…” She shrugs, cheeks turning a bit pink and she lightly touches her own mark, “I know I do.”

He was born with a lion on his shoulder. Hissrad is soulmarked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** 010\. Writer’s choice – beginning  
>  **Words:** 714 words


	2. waiting

Hissrad is becoming The Iron Bull.

He chose the name himself, of course, but sometimes he wonders whether or not he’s just deluding himself into thinking that he _didn’t_ snap and that he’s still part of the Qun. Orlais is a ridiculously easy posting and it’s difficult, sometimes, not to feel as though he’s being punished – being _tested_.

His reports are sparse and infrequent. For the most part, it’s all just mercenary work.

Krem’s the first. Well, _Cremisius_ , but that’s a mouthful, so he’s Krem now.

“Didn’t know you were soulmarked,” Krem says, one evening. It’s still just the two of them, so they take turns patching each other up. “I always thought you qunari didn’t have them.”

Bull’s still adjusting to the fact that he’s only got one eye now. The hit to his side cut through the harness on his shoulder, leaving shallow lacerations that bleed more than they hurt. His side took the brunt of the blow, but it’s not enough to knock him out.

“We like to pretend we don’t,” Bull answers. “They complicate things.”

Krem snorts, “‘Course it would, you’re sharing a soul with someone else.”

There’s a long stretch of silence after that, though it’s not uncomfortable. Krem finishes bandaging Bull’s arm, fingers carefully avoiding touching the mark – even if it would be easier for him to do so.

“There a reason you’re not touching it?”

“I like my neck intact, thanks. ‘Sides, it would be a waste of your eye if you killed me now,” Krem replies. He flops down beside Bull, eye swelling from the hit he took, “Dunno all the details – soulmarks are really rare – but I _do_ know that the only one who should be touching it is whoever’s mark it is. You can touch it just fine and so can your soulmarked – anyone else? You’ll probably break their neck.”

“Huh.”

He’s never actually let someone get close enough to touch the mark. Not even his old Tama had touched it, even if he got into a fight. She’d smooth out the bandages, but her fingers would skitter away from the mark as though it burned.

He’d always wondered about that.

Now that he’s down south, maybe he should look into this whole soulmark business a little more. Bull adds it to his mental checklist; he’ll either charm the information out of someone or he’ll see if he can smoke out a book or two.

It shouldn’t be too hard.

 

 

 

Cullen starts doubting that he’ll ever find his soulmarked long before Kirkwall.

Kirkwall merely cements the knowledge that he’s a poor match for anyone.

There’s a part of him that’s… damaged. He knows that much. Something inside of him is broken, has been since Kinloch, and there’s no real way to fix him. As much as he’s tried to patch himself up since then, it’s like trying to hold water in your hands; it’s always slipping through.

He still has nightmares.

And, beyond that, he can’t even keep his mark safe.

 

 

 

Meredith rules Kirkwall with an ironfist. There’s the pretension that the viscount is in charge, but everyone knows that the knight-commander is the true power in the city. Cullen’s heard rumours, knows that the city is a stronghold for the Templar Order. It’s why Greagoir sent him there in the first place; his views have no place in Fereldan’s liberal tower.

But he’s just as much an outcast in Kirkwall as he is in Ferelden.

He’s an outsider here. Meredith hand selects her inner circle, like-minded templars and extremists who make even _Cullen_ seem reasonable. The fact that Alrik hasn’t been expelled from the Order for his transgressions speaks volumes.

The nightmares continue to plague him, reminding him of the missing half of his soul, tormenting him. No matter how hard Cullen prays, they do not stop. His faith is quavering.

The Order has brought him nothing but pain.

He’s tasked with little more than babysitting the new recruits, of which there are many. Him and another templar, a man by the name of Samson, are to watch over the recruits, walk them through their initiations and make sure that they do not waver in their beliefs.

Not all of them are fervent enough, and Cullen knows that they will not last long in Kirkwall.

Even after a mere few weeks, he learns that only those who match the knight-commander in her paranoia and zealous belief flourish in Kirkwall. Anyone without possession of such zeal is quickly phased out, either exiled to the least desirable shifts or transferred to another Circle.

He’s seen four templars transferred to Montsimmard and another two to Markham. The templars from Starkhaven, who came after the Circle there was burned to the ground, are relegated to little more than ceremonious guard duty.

Cullen’s been present for Harrowings, but in Kirkwall he’s relegated to babysitting recruits. He knows he’s on the outs.

Samson is in similar straits.

“Meredith’s a little…” Samson swirls his finger near his ear. “You get used to it.”

The man’s also got no sense of personal space.

Cullen learns this the hard way.

“Didn’t know you had ink; thought that was against the templar way.” Samson presses his fingers against the swirl of the dragon’s tale, right at the small of Cullen’s back.

It _burns_. Cullen lashes out, but Samson catches his fist before he can land the punch. Samson smirks.

“Soulmarked, huh? Better keep that under the wraps. Wouldn’t do for the knight-commander to know.”

Templars take no vows, Cullen knows, but those with soulmarks are… discouraged from joining the Order. Soulmarks are considered a distraction, detracting from the belief in the Maker that all templars need in order to carry out their duties.

Cullen realizes quickly that Samson is not content to let the information sit idle.

When Cullen catches him passing love letters between a templar and a mage, Samson grins and says, “Wouldn’t do for the knight-commander to find out about your little mark, would it?”

Cullen keeps his mouth shut.

 

 

 

The Iron Bull learns that soulmarks are valuable in the south. They’re considered to be a mark of blessing by the Maker, that your soul has its own match somewhere in the world; that one isn’t complete without the other.

It’s nice and all, but he doesn’t believe it.

Well, part of him _does_ because it’s pointless to ignore the lion branded onto his shoulder. He knows he’s soulmarked and understands, now, the logistics behind it. He gets the strange dreams – they’re his soulmarked’s – and the sudden, unexplainable pain that he sometimes, though rarely, experiences is from someone else touching his mark on his other half.

He’s not sure why it pisses him off to think of someone else touching the mark. But it does.

Probably cause they’re doing it without permission. Bull’s big on consent.

He wonders about the mark that he’s left on his other half, sometimes, when he’s languid from some damn good sex or when his thoughts start wandering. Usually, he cuts those thoughts off before they more than form; he’s part of the Qun. The Qun doesn’t allow for soulmarks.

The Qun wouldn’t approve of half the shit he does.

Bull’s starting to realize that he’s losing himself; he’s enjoying the south far too much. He’s good at playing the Orlesian Game when he needs to, and he does because he’s walking a thin line as a spy and given that he’s one of ‘those qunari’ he has to be extra careful. But no one pays the hired help much attention.

Unless it’s _that_ kind of attention. In which case, he’s down; it’s usually quite fun, anyhow.

But he’s started thinking about _them_ and that’s the problem.

There shouldn’t be a them. Can’t be.

But now there is.

 

 

 

Cullen learns to swallow his words and bite his tongue. Meredith doesn’t care for him or his views and makes that perfectly clear. After Samson leaves, he falls under suspicion next.

He does all he can to appear to be the perfect templar.

And he makes sure to bathe alone.

His mark hums, sometimes, and Cullen wonders after it. He’ll press a hand to it, sometimes, through armour or cloth, and feel heat. Touching it steadies him, reminds him that it’s there. It’s his greatest secret and his most prized treasure.

Frankly, he’s shocked that Samson didn’t tell Meredith.

But as the years tick passed, he starts to notice that Kirkwall is a time bomb.

He doesn’t remember there being so many cases of blood mages in Kinloch. There had been a few, scattered throughout the lower ranks of mages and one or two more senior enchanters, but Cullen can count on one hand the number that he recalls from his years of service in Ferelden.

Greagoir was always… lenient with the Rite of Tranquility. Only mages who failed their Harrowing were made Tranquil, or those who were proven blood mages.

Meredith wields the Rite as though it’s a common punishment.

At first, Cullen sees no issue with this. It makes sense to him, given how insidious the problem with blood mages is in Kirkwall. Each week, it seems that there’s a new blood mage, a new maleficar wandering the streets that must be dealt with. Magic runs in the streets and the templars are all that stand before the destruction of the city.

But he notices small things. Little differences.

Friendships between templars and mages were discouraged but common in Kinloch. Relations were… perhaps not cordial between Irving and Greagoir, but they don’t reach the catty hatred that simmers below the relationship between Orsino and Meredith. It’s not uncommon to hear the two of them having a shouting match about Meredith’s latest restrictions and punishments.

There are no friendships in Kirkwall.

Templars are discouraged, even _punished_ , if they treat a mage with even a modicum of kindness. And Cullen sees the scars, catches more than one templar holding down a mage or leaning in, leering and making advances.

He files more than one report on Alrik, but nothing is ever done.

Until Alrik turns up dead in the sewers, that is.

Cullen says nothing, but he recognizes Hawke’s handiwork when he sees it. He covers it up. Alrik was found in tunnels favoured by lyrium smugglers, it’s easy enough to explain away as a lyrium deal gone bad.

Lyrium is better currency in Kirkwall than gold, Cullen learns. There’s an entire underground trade in it, all of it funneling into the Gallows to feed the templars’ addiction.

It makes him keenly aware of how dependent he himself is on lyrium. It makes him uneasy. He’s seen Meredith deprive templars of lyrium when they’ve wronged her, when she’s suspected them of being under a blood mage’s influence – or simply because they’ve displeased her.

He realizes that he’s living under a dictatorship, one that’s crumbling faster than Meredith can shore it up. Kirkwall is a powder keg, waiting to blow. The abuses that Cullen witnesses are, without doubt, unwarranted.

Cullen learns that the grand cleric is content to let things lie. When he works up the courage to deliver a report to her of all the abuses he’s witnessed within the Gallows, nothing happens. There’s no investigation, no cutting back on Meredith’s privileges.

And Cullen is grateful that the report was done anonymously.

Meredith responds immediately. Lyrium rations are halved.

There’s an itch under his skin that never goes away. He feels ill, thirsty, and dizzy. His hands don’t stop shaking for hours, not until the next tincture.

It’s an accurate demonstration of Meredith’s power: Question me, I will punish you all.

 

 

 

Then an apostate blows up the Chantry.

Nothing is the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** 029\. Waiting  
>  **Words:** 1958 words


	3. hide

Cullen avoids eating, mostly for the fact that too often it triggers the nausea. He’s vomited up enough meals to know that he’s honestly tired of it. But if he doesn’t eat, then the cramps come – worse than hunger pains – and it’s only years of training that keep him from curling into a ball and crying.

When he looks at himself in the cracked mirror above the wash basin in his tiny quarters, he can see the fine lines about his eyes and the tense line of his jaw.

He’s gotten very used to throwing up quietly and washing the bucket out himself. He keeps it discreetely tucked under his thin cot, within easy reach for whenever his stomach clenches and throat burns.

It happens more often than he’d like.

Thus far, he’s been able to avoid any unwanted questions. Even when his hands start to tremble during rounds or when he’s reading through reports, no one has made a comment – even an observation. And Cassandra has said nothing of his work ethic, so either she hasn’t noticed that anything is wrong or what he’s experiencing is simply… routine.

He knew when he stopped taking lyrium that there would be consequences. He’d _known_ that.

On the nights he can’t sleep, he climbs up to the top of Haven’s gate and stares at the moons overhead, his breath cold white clouds in front of him. He doesn’t mind the chill, dressing for it, and simply tries to remember the names of the constellations from when he was young. He traces out the imaginary lines of them to distract himself, remembering their names and the stories behind them.

Sometimes the cold is too much for him.

On those nights, he sits inside and watches the fire burn until he, eventually, dozes off. Or he’ll review reports, finish whatever paperwork needs seeing to.

Which is why fear courses cold and sharp through him when the Herald of Andraste approaches him one day, Cassandra at his side.

It’s unfounded, fades quickly, when Cassandra leaves the Herald and instead heads to the sparring grounds.

“We weren’t properly introduced, were we?” he says. His accent is sharp, that of the Free Marches.

“I – no. I’m afraid not.”

His armour is worn, faded and scuffed from long years of use. But the deep red sash tied about his waist marks him as being from the Ostwick region, the Trevelyan family specifically.

He holds his hand, bare, and smiles, “Then we should change that. I’m Jason Trevelyan, Commander.”

Cullen takes his hand, is a little surprised at the firm grip, and nods, “Commander Cullen Rutherford, Herald.”

“Jason,” he corrects. “I’m not above you, Commander.”

“Of course, Her – Jason.”

Jason’s smile turns to a grin, as he pulls his glove and gauntlet back on. He rubs his hands together, “I was told this was where I was to come if I wanted a spar. You up for one, Cullen?”

He’s saved from rejecting the Herald when a scout comes up, reports in hand.

“Perhaps another time?” he offers.

The Herald shrugs, “Suit yourself.”

It doesn’t escape Cullen’s notice that many of his soldiers stare, starry-eyed at the Herald. Of course they would, this is the man who closed that rift and stopped the Breach from spreading. This is the man who will close the Breach.

Cullen’s distracted by the reports from the scout, but he keeps the Herald in the periphery of his vision, watching as he strides through the sparring and training grounds. He stops every now and again, offering words to the soldiers as he passes.

“He was a Seeker,” Cassandra says, nearly scaring him to death. “As I was. I hadn’t met him before, though, apparently he had only just completed his vigil when we separated from the Chantry.”

“Ah.”

“I will take those to Leliana.” Cassandra takes the reports from him, glancing over them before nodding and tucking them under her arm. “And perhaps you should consider taking him up on that offer to spar. Keep yourself in shape, Commander.”

Cullen swallows the lump in his throat, hides the tremor in his hands, “I’ll think on it.”

“Do so.”

 

 

 

Cullen expects that it will get easier with time.

It does not.

The nausea comes and goes, sometimes triggered by little more than the smell of a specific food. Cullen sometimes finds that he can’t make his way to his quarters fast enough, has to detour into the woods, to empty his stomach after dinner. There’s an almost constant throb in his temples, that ebbs and flows, but flares at the most inconvenient times.

His hands still tremble uncontrollably and unpredictably. Sometimes when he fills out reports, others when he tightens his grip about the hilt of his sword.

He’s tired more often than he is awake, but his sleep does not improve.

His soulmark itches.

Cullen presses cold fingers to it and shivers, feels a heartbeat he knows isn’t his. He sucks in a breath, than another, and tries to relax. But still, it itches and itches, but no scratching will soothe it. Instead, that itch turns to a burning hum that never quite goes away.

Cullen doesn’t know what that means, wonders if it’s yet another symptom of the lyrium withdrawal.

He presses his hand over his heart, feels it beat within his chest.

Not for the first time, he thinks of his soulmarked and hopes that they’re better off wherever they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** 022\. Hide  
>  **Words:** 920 words


End file.
